A Song for Summer
‘Look, there’s her garden,’ said Lieselotte. ‘These are the herbs she grew and the flowers. She knew exactly what to use for healing.’
Aniella’s garden, painted like a tea tray on the side of the mountain, was a miracle of husbandry. Rows of curly cabbages flecked in bright green paint, raspberry canes, small bushes which Lieselotte’s mother named for them. ‘Rosemary, fennel, St John’s wort . . .’
‘But she loved the wild flowers too,’ Lieselotte went on. ‘There’s a picture of her over there in the triptych holding a bunch of gentians and marguerites and edelweiss.’
But Sophie was already worried. No one became a saint for loving flowers and being good to their family. What dreadful fate lay in wait for this appealing girl? They had only to turn to the next painting to see. A vile knight on horseback, his face set in a conquering sneer, rode with his henchmen towards the mountain. You could almost hear the clattering of hoofs, the clash of lances.
‘That’s Count Alexei von Hohenstift,’ said Lieselotte. ‘He was a truly wicked knight and so were his followers, but when he saw Aniella he fell passionately in love with her and said she had to marry him. She wept and implored and begged him to leave her, but he said if she refused to be his bride he would kill every man and woman and child in the village and set it on fire.’
‘Oh how awful,’ said Sophie. ‘What did she do?’
‘Prayed, of course,’ said Leon.
His irony was lost on these uncomplicated people.
‘That’s right,’ said Lieselotte. ‘She went into that little grotto there; you can see it in the inset. It’s still there, halfway up the hill behind the castle. And an angel appeared to her and said she must prepare for her wedding and trust in God.’
In the next painting they could see that Aniella had obeyed. Helped by her brothers and sisters, down whose small faces there ran rows of perfectly painted tears, she was trying on her wedding dress while her friends put out trestle tables and food for the wedding feast – and even the salamander seemed to mourn.
‘This is the one, I like best though,’ said Lieselotte, moving down the row.
The picture showed a flotilla of boats crossing the lake towards the church. In one boat were the musicians with their instruments, in another the guilds, in a third the school children in the care of nuns. And in the centre of the flotilla, in a boat beautifully draped and swagged, sat Aniella in her wedding dress with her brothers and sisters, carrying a bouquet of the alpine flowers she loved so well and not looking at all as though she was going to her doom.
‘Because she trusted in God, you see,’ said Lieselotte.
Sophie, who could not bear unhappy endings, who was waiting for the dismemberment, the breaking on the wheel, was biting her lip. ‘What happened?’
‘You can see. Aniella reached the church and as she stood at the altar the vile count tried to ride into the church with his henchmen – but the horse reared, it wouldn’t commit sacrilege – so he strode up the aisle and just as the priest started on the service Alexei stared at his bride and –’ Lieselotte paused dramatically. ‘Look!’
They leant over her shoulder. Aniella still stood there in her white dress with her bunch of flowers; but her face had become the hideous, wrinkled face of an old hag.
‘God had made her into a dreadful old witch,’ said Lieselotte. ‘Just in an instant. And the count screamed and drew out his sword and thrust it into Aniella’s heart – if you come closer you can see the blood.’
They could indeed see it. It streamed over Aniella’s dress as she fell to the ground, and over the children bending in anguish over their sister; it dripped from the count’s sword as he ran in terror from the church and spotted the carpet on the aisle.
‘So she did die,’ said Sophie. It was only what she had expected.
‘No, it was all right. Because as soon as the count had gone she became young and beautiful again and she rose up and up and God took her to him and flowers came down from everywhere.’
The last picture showed Aniella, floating over the roof of the Hallendorf church, radiant and lovely, and the angels leaning out of heaven to take her in.
‘She went to God,’ said Lieselotte, and such was her satisfaction that Sophie had to be content.
‘It’s a lovely story, Lieselotte,’ said Ellen.
‘It isn’t a story,’ said Lieselotte. ‘It’s true.’
‘What was it like?’ asked Ursula that night.
‘It was nice,’ said Sophie. ‘We heard about this saint – she was very horticultural and good. Like a cross between Heidi and Saint Francis of Assisi. Or a bit like a chicken . . . you know, those hens that hold out their wings and protect their chicks?’ Sitting up in bed, Sophie stretched out her skinny arms. ‘She was a sheltering person.’
‘Like Ellen,’ said Janey.
‘Yes,’ said Sophie, ‘exactly like Ellen.’
‘What happened to her?’ asked Ursula.
‘She got killed.’
Ursula nodded. All the best people got killed: her mother and father, Geronimo . . . and Sitting Bull, who had been betrayed and assassinated at Standing Rock.
Two doors down Ellen leant out of her window, looking out at the soft, expectant night. Below her the half-heard, half-felt murmur of the lake came as a counterpoint to her thoughts as she went back over the day.
After the service, Marek had taken them to the inn for coffee and cakes and then excused himself; he was going to meet Professor Steiner. Leaving the children to wander round the village, she had slipped back to the church. There was something she wanted to look at more carefully; the triptych in which Aniella was depicted holding a bunch of alpine flowers.
She was still examining the painting when she became aware of someone in a side chapel. A man who had put a coin in the offertory box and now lit a tall white candle which he placed with the other votive candles beneath the altar. For a moment he stood with bent head over the flame. Then he looked up, saw her – and came over, quite unembarrassed, to her side.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I think I’ve found them.’
Following her pointing finger, Marek saw the tiny black fists of the orchids among the brilliant colours of primulas and saxifrage and gentians.
‘Kohlröserl?’
‘Yes.’ She was glad he had remembered. ‘So they were there then, up on the alp.’
‘Which means that they might be there now. And if they are, then we can find them.’
It was absurd how pleased she had been by that ‘we’. But the happiness she had felt there in the church was shot through now with something else: puzzlement, anxiety . . .
For whom had this strong and self-sufficient man needed to light a candle? For what person – or what enterprise – did he need to evoke the gods?
Meierwitz, had he been present in the church, might have been surprised, but pleased nonetheless. No more than Marek would he seriously imagine that a minor Austrian saint of uncertain provenance (for Aniella’s sanctity had been disputed) would concern herself with one small Jew without a home or country . . . and one who didn’t even attend his own synagogue let alone a church.
But candles are . . . candles. They are not confined to countries or religions; their living flame reaches upwards to places where disputation has long since ceased. Neither Krishna, nor Jehovah, nor Jesus Christ would claim to be the sole recipient of the hope and faith that goes into the act of candle-lighting, in the attics of unbelievers, in schools, on birthday cakes and trees . . .
Marek, lighting his candle, had uttered no specific prayer, yet it might be considered that the unuttered prayer was heard. For two days later, Isaac Meierwitz found the courage to leave the farm in which he had lain hidden for months and set off under cover of darkness for the place near the border where he was to meet his contacts. He had been too much afraid to leave the familiar shelter until then, and he was still afraid . . . but he had gone.
In the third week of term, FitzAllan arrived from England to
direct the end of term play.
Owing to Hallendorf’s emphasis on drama, the summer term was extended by nearly three weeks so that the play could not only be seen by parents and other visitors, but could serve as the opening of the Summer School which ran through August and the first part of September.
The play chosen was thus of a special importance, and differed from other performances throughout the year in that staff and pupils acted in it together, and the design, the music and the lighting were a joint effort between adults and children.
Bennet’s decision to bring in an outsider to direct this year was a bold one. FitzAllan had demanded a substantial fee and fees – whether substantial or otherwise – came not out of the depleted coffers of the school but out of Bennet’s own pocket. But Derek FitzAllan was not only a specialist in the Stanislavsky technique and a man who had studied under Meyerhold in Russia and Piscator in the Weimar Republic – he had produced a coup which Bennet could not afford to turn down.
He had apparently persuaded Bertolt Brecht, now in exile from Germany, to let the school put on a translation of his unperformed play, Saint Johanna of the Stockyards. Not only to put it on but to make the necessary alterations which would make it easy to perform in a school. Bennet, amazed that the playwright had shown himself so generous, accepted FitzAllan’s offer, and reproached himself for a slight weariness, a faint longing for something with more colour and life affirmation than this Marxist drama seemed likely to provide.
So now, driving with Tamara to meet the director from the train, he did his best to feel encouraged. FitzAllan had long silver hair, a relatively young, tanned face and was dressed entirely in black. He was also, as he told Bennet immediately, a strict and undeviating vegan and asked that the information should be conveyed at once to the cook.
‘My goodness, what is that?’ asked Lieselotte when Ellen brought the news to the kitchen.
‘It’s someone who doesn’t eat anything that comes from animals,’ said Ellen. ‘No meat, no eggs, no milk, no cheese . . .’
‘But what does he eat then?’ asked poor Lieselotte.
‘Nuts,’ said Ellen, curling her lip. The director had already handed her his soiled underpants and socks to wash.
Ellen had made clear her determination not to go to meetings about plays. But the gathering that FitzAllan had convened in the Great Hall as soon as he arrived came at the end of a difficult day. Sophie had still not heard from her parents, Freya had had a rejective postcard from her Mats in Lapland, and Bruno had written SHRED THE LITTLE CABBAGE in red paint on an outhouse door. There was also the question of Hermine Ritter. It had not been Ellen’s intention to get fond of Dr Ritter. Her flourishing moustache, her voice – with which one could have drilled a regiment of uhlans – and her complete inability to organise the life of her baby were not in themselves endearing.
But in her own way, Hermine cared deeply about her work. Unlike Tamara, whose apparent concern for the children was really directed at her own aggrandisement, Hermine spared herself no effort, and when she asked Ellen to come to the meeting, Ellen found herself weakening. She knew that it was Hermine who had directed the previous productions and realised that it would not be easy for her to submit to the authority of an outsider.
‘I thought I might watch Andromeda for you,’ she said.
But Hermine said she would take Andromeda and they could share her.
So Ellen was present when FitzAllan, introduced by Bennet, leapt boyishly on to the platform and began to summarise the plot.
‘As you may know, the play is set in the Chicago stockyards in the Twenties and follows the fate of a group of slaughterhouse workers threatened by a lockout engineered by their capitalist bosses. The starving workers are visited by the band of the Salvation Army, led by the heroine, Johanna, who brings them soup and tries to convert them to Christianity, but though the workers eat the soup they reject the message of Christ.’ He paused, raking his silver hair, and sighed. Some of the children looked small; others looked stupid. He had forgotten that the school accepted juniors. ‘Jonanna now begs the capitalists to relent, but though they pretend to listen, they do nothing; at which point she loses her faith, throws in her lot with the striking workers – and dies of starvation in the snow.’
Thus described, Abattoir could not be called a cheerful play, but its sentiments did everyone credit, and as FitzAllan pointed out, no one need be without a part since in addition to the capitalists, the Salvation Army and the proletariat, there were parts for stock breeders, labour leaders, speculators and newsboys, not to mention the possibility of a chorus of slaughtered cattle, pigs and sheep, though this was not in the original script.
Having summarised the play, the director invited suggestions as to how it should be treated.
‘Clearly in a Marxist work of this sort the emphasis must be on the persecution of the workers,’ said Jean-Pierre. ‘Their fate is paramount. We could show this by lighting them very strikingly – with military searchlights, for example – keeping the capitalists in the shadows.’
Rollo did not entirely agree. He felt that the core of the play lay in the three-tiered hierarchical structure of society and proposed a set built in layers of scaffolding: the workers at the bottom, the Salvation Army in the middle and the capitalists on top.
‘But not metal . . .’ said poor Chomsky under his breath. ‘Not metal scaffolding’ – and was ignored.
For Hermine, this was not the point at all: what she saw in Abattoir was a chance for the children to come into contact with their own physicality.
‘I will make exercises for the hanging motion of the carcasses and the thrust of the knife. They can experience rictus . . . and spasms,’ she said, handing her baby to Ellen so as to demonstrate the kind of thing she had in mind.
FitzAllan now put up his hand. ‘That is all very interesting and true,’ he said, and Bennet, watching him, recognised all the signs of a director who had not the slightest intention of doing anything that anyone suggested. ‘But I have to remind you above all that Brecht invented the Alienation Theory. The Verfremdungseffekt,’ he said, breaking into German for those of the children who were looking puzzled, ‘is seminal to Brecht’s thinking.’
A brave child, a small girl with red hair, now put up her hand and said: ‘What is the Alienation Theory?’ and was rewarded by grateful looks from the other children.
‘Alienation Theory demands that the audience is in no way emotionally involved with the action on the stage. Brecht believed that the lights should be left on during the performance so that people could walk about and smoke cigars . . . and so on.’
‘What do you do if you don’t smoke cigars?’ asked a literal-minded boy with spectacles, and was quelled by a look from the director.
‘Who’s going to do the music?’ asked Leon. ‘What’s going to happen about that?’
But here too Abattoir showed itself uniquely suited to the requirements of a school whose music teacher, swathed in unspeakable knitted balaclavas from his former pupils, was absent fighting in Spain. For as FitzAllan explained, the workers would sing the Internationale, the Salvation Army would bang tambourines and sing hymns, and the exploitative capitalists would listen to decadent jazz on the gramophone.
‘But there must be a ballet,’ declared Tamara – and a weary sigh ran round the room. ‘A red ballet with a theme of . . . viscerality. It could come to the workers while they slept.’
FitzAllan opened his mouth, remembered she was the headmaster’s wife and closed it again.
‘We’ll discuss it in private,’ he said, treating her to one of his brilliantly boyish smiles.
‘Who’s going to be the heroine?’ asked Janey. ‘The one who gives soup to the workers and dies in the snow?’
‘I shall begin the auditions tomorrow,’ said FitzAllen – and reminding them that the clue to the piece would lie in its truthful and monolithic drabness, he declared the meeting closed.
Although lessons continued in the mornings
, the afternoons and evenings were now devoted to increasingly frenzied rehearsals for Abattoir. Not only rehearsals but workshops and seminars of every kind, many of which were conducted out of doors.
Predictably, the play was taking its toll. The director’s determination to make the children call up their own experience of being cruel employers was particularly unfortunate.
‘He said I oppressed Czernowitz because he came in on Sunday to feed the rats,’ said Sophie, coming in from one such Method class in tears, ‘but I didn’t – honestly, Ellen; I loved Czernowitz. I still do. If it wasn’t for him I’d never know where anyone was.’
Leon had fallen foul of FitzAllan by pointing out that the wicked stockyard owners shouldn’t be playing jazz on the gramophone. ‘Jazz comes from the Blues,’ said Leon. ‘It’s the music the Negroes used to free themselves, so it isn’t decadent at all,’ he’d said and been thoroughly snubbed.
Worst of all was poor Flix. FitzAllan had had the sense to see that the talented and unassuming American girl was perfect casting as the heroine, Johanna, but he had insisted on giving her a lecture on the Judas sheep.
‘It’s a sheep that they set up to go into the slaughterhouse and lead all the others in. It never gets killed, it just goes round and round, but the others do. It seems so absolutely awful to make an animal do that,’ said Flix, who had recently become a Jain and wore a muslin gauze over her mouth in the evenings so that she would not swallow, or damage, the gnats.
The staff were not immune either. Hermine’s efforts to put the children in touch with their own physicality were affecting her milk and poor Chomsky’s darkest fears had been realised. The three-tiered structure to represent the hierarchical nature of society was to be made of metal and the Hungarian, who had led a sheltered life getting the children to make bookends by bending a sheet of galvanised steel into a right angle, could be seen capering round the gigantic metal struts like a demented Rumpelstiltskin.